Miguel, over at Mousing Around, writes that, in at least one school district he knows of, administrators have blocked sites that even reference the much-vilified myspace.com.
Miguel notes that the rule is "...pretty straightforward and broad: Web pages containing the UNMENTIONABLE will be banned.”
Not an unusual response to a perceived threat, right? Except that education bloggers who mention myspace as part of a legitimate discussion are now off-limits in this unidentified district. (Like Blogboard, for instance.)
Even worse:
If one does a search on "space" in Google [from within this unnamed district] ...the search results are blocked.
So now the word “space” is, well, unmentionable in this annonymous school district? That seems a little overkill, even to Blogboard, which remains strictly neutral in this debate. Perhaps their filter needs a little tweaking?
Miguel poses this provocative question:
So, is a school district within its rights to actually ban—not only the web site address/URL but also—the title of a particular item, no matter where it appears, including search engine results, media stories, etc.?
‘Til we’ve an answer, Miguel suggests this:
Use "mi!sp@ce" instead of the proper spelling.
Blogboard resists.
